


Tomorrow

by DirectorShellhead



Series: Tumblr Prompts & Drabbles [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Consent Issues, Hand Jobs, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-14
Updated: 2015-05-14
Packaged: 2018-03-30 13:12:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3938101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DirectorShellhead/pseuds/DirectorShellhead
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At a military base, about a week after Rhodey pulls Tony out of the desert in Afghanistan but before they've been cleared to go back to the U.S., Tony tries to get out of his own head by getting into Rhodey's pants, and Rhodey really wants, but also really doesn't want, to let him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tomorrow

**Author's Note:**

> THIS IS NOT A HEALTHY, HAPPY SEXUAL ENCOUNTER. Emotional states are fraught and muddled, and there are a lot of conflicting motivations going on. However, both parties do what they do of their own free will, and they’re both grown-ass men who are loathe to let anyone else (even each other) decide for them what they want or need. Their relationship is multifaceted and deep and really fucking complicated, especially during the timeframe depicted. Read, or choose not to read, accordingly.

Tomorrow, he’ll be able to tell himself that his wrists ache because Rhodey’s grip is fucking criminal, grinding bone against bone where he’s got them pinned to the wall above Tony’s head. Tomorrow, he’ll be able to tell himself that the bruises there are Rhodey’s fault, that there weren’t three months worth of layered ligature marks already marring the skin, barely begun to fade.

For the six hours a day he’d not been put to work in a makeshift missile lab, they’d kept him bound at the wrists and the ankles, even when Raza had seen fit to put him to other uses, and he thought he’d never–

“Thought I’d never,” Rhodey gasps out brokenly, rough as gravel, lips skimming down Tony’s sternum. His breath is tinder to the torn flesh at the edge of the hole newly carved into his chest, lighting it on fire. If Rhodey continues to speak, Tony doesn’t catch the words. 

Tony can’t breathe, but it’s fine. It’s suffocating, the way their pelvises grind together, the way Rhodey won’t stop running his free hand all along Tony’s mending ribs, but it’s a different kind of asphyxiation, hot and dry and nothing at all like being plunged headfirst into the shock of cold water.

Tomorrow, when nightmares wake him, he’ll remember the sting of Rhodey’s fingers in his hair, yanking his head backward to get at his throat, not shoving him forward and holding him down as Raza had done, and it’ll be better, then.

He must be making that noise again, that piteous soft sound like a small animal dying. Three months, and he’d never learned to recognize it as something issued forth from his own lungs. “I’m hurting you,” Rhodey says, face collapsing in on itself with an anguish too intense for Tony to parse. Tony rips Rhodey’s fly open and takes his cock in hand. Their teeth click when Tony mashes his mouth against Rhodey’s, because he’s greedy and he’s wicked, because he can’t bear for Rhodey to keep saying things.

He tastes like scotch and salt. Tinge of copper; Tony’s contribution, because his split lip’s opened up again. He thrashes against Rhodey’s grip on the wrist that’s still pinned, squeezing his eyes shut and surging forward.

Rhodey lets him go, even takes a step back, hands starting to raise in some placating gesture that consumes Tony with raw fury. “Fuck you, don’t you dare,” he snarls, snatching Rhodey back to him by the hips.

“I can’t,” Rhodey says, and Tony wonders why, for all the times Rhodey’s gone to bat for him, defended him, laid his life on the line for him, he can’t do this simple thing.

“You’re gonna, c’mon, it’s, I’m fine,” he pants, but then Rhodey’s got Tony’s face in both his hands, and it’s, it’s so, he’s so _gentle_ , and that feels–

God, it _feels_ –

Tony thinks he must be disintegrating. More salt tang seeping into the corner of his mouth, strange warmth. It takes him too many tick-tock seconds of silence, Rhodey’s eyes boring into him, to realize that he’s weeping. Tony Stark, weeping. (Stark men aren’t made of iron, not at all, he has learned these past few months.) Because his best friend’s got his warm rough hands cupped along his jawline, as if Tony’s terribly breakable.

Or something already broken, being only barely held together.

Tony rankles at the thought, goosebumps prickling down the backs of his arms. He wonders if Rhodey is even breathing. He is so unsettlingly still.

“You’re not fine,” Rhodey tells him after a pregnant, crushing pause. “Look at you. You’re not.” Like he’s watching someone drown. Like he’s watching someone bleed out.

Tony refuses to gratify his overweening concern. Shakes his head. Smacks Rhodey’s hands away from his face. He’d like to shout at him, if he could only push some kind of sound past the vice-tight ache in his throat. He is so tired of the endless silence of confinement, and he is so tired of the carefulness with which he’s been handled by everyone since walking out of the desert. Rhodey’s been the only one to crack tasteless jokes, to manhandle him into half-embraces, to get on his ass when he starts to drift into self-pity, but now even Rhodey’s got that look that tells Tony he’s too far gone to come back from this.

“Then fix it,” Tony snarls, crowding right back into Rhodey’s space. “Do something about it. Spent three damn months trying to find me, didn’t you? Well, I’m right here.” Tony grabs Rhodey’s hand and shoves it into the V of his thighs, rolling his hips to press hard into Rhodey’s palm. It’s better than weeping. It’s better than begging, even if Rhodey’s whole body shudders, then slackens to let Tony surge in for another kiss. Rhodey will get the fuck over it, Tony figures. Or he’ll pretend to, like they’ve both done before. Otherwise, Tony’s going to have to face Rhodey and see, clear as a mirror image, the same broken thing Rhodey’s trying not to look at right now, and that’ll mean–

Unthinkable. Tony sucks in a sharp breath and lets his hands make a greedy advance beneath Rhodey’s shirt, and he nips at Rhodey’s tongue until Rhodey is moaning and his hand is wrapping convulsively around Tony’s cock to start stroking it. The skin of his belly flinches as Rhodey’s knuckles skim over it, and his stomach swoops sickeningly, but Tony only arches into the touch. He is going to want this, whether his body approves or not, and tomorrow, when it’s done and behind them, he will pretend at being alright.

Tomorrow, Tony will succeed in that lie because Rhodey will let him–at least for a little while–for both their sakes.


End file.
